February 2012
3 posts
karachi lit. fest →
this is underway in karachi right now. and i almost went. sigh.
it is 2012 and there are panels with kashmiri journos and novelists. at last. oh at last. and mirza waheed’s The Collaborator held a launching session yesterday.
meanwhile, up north, as the spring thaw is being awaited, there was yet another, accidental on-purpose death that was reported. the killing of 22 year old ashiq...
the baloch who is not missing. (who has been... →
“There are more than 8,000 if you believe Baloch nationalists, hundreds according to human rights organisations, 1,100 according to our interior minister Rehman Malik and none according to our intelligence agencies. Senior journalist I. A. Rehman wrote in these pages more than two years ago:
“Instead of offering the embittered Baloch redress and satisfaction the authorities have chosen to...
January 2012
1 post
terha pakistan →
an interview/narrative piece i authored with the generous sharing of some amazing queer pakistanis. while reading the title of this, at first i read “tera” pakistan, tera as in “yours” and i got confused and i thought no, humara pakistan. as in our pakistan.
http://himalmag.com/component/content/article/4994-tera-pakistan.html
then i realized it’s really the...
December 2011
1 post
November 2011
3 posts
mornings at express.
i recently started working at express news 24/7. it’s the only english channel in pakistan and i work on the morning show as an associate producer/scriptwriter. my job entails researching stories and writing up about them, and compiling national and international headlines. i also do some research on the guest we feature and write introductions for them. i know that before i left amreeka, i...
“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care...”
– Zadie Smith, On Beauty (via umnica)
of thiago
i read a story today. i could be thiago.
“thiago could always be persuaded into the most reckless of plans. he loved adventure and found the most joy in making ordinary moments extraordinary. he often went out for walks by himself, deliberately choosing a different route each time to find new things, watch events unfold on street corners and in small parks. and then he would make a list of...
October 2011
3 posts
draft of a pamphlet for #qabza lahore/raha lahore
Occupy Nasir Bagh. Activists are to set up a dharna camp in Nasir Bagh in support of global protests against Capitalism. The Anti capitalism camp is to hold a General Assembly each day of the camp and committees are to be set up to further the struggle on the day. The purpose of the camps is to move beyond the ‘imperialist backed bourgeois’ politics of the state – that claims to be in the name of...
rev. love + principals from occupy wall street
Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
THIS DOCUMENT WAS ACCEPTED BY THE NYC GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we...
September 2011
9 posts
intellectual dishonesty in misrepresenting Shia... →
something to think about. where does sectarian violence begin and end? where does ethnic cleansing take over from genocide? how has the State sponsored historic violence and built it into a national project? why am i even talking/writing? insofar as it is helpful to plan a course of action in response thru education, video-making, campaign building i am supportive. when it is not, i must withdraw...
a morning beer in pakistan: pakistan's only... →
an article on murree brewery by declan walsh. from 2004.
on bootlegging.
It is common knowledge that Pakistan is a dry country. In 1977 zulfikar ali bhutto banned the consumption and sale of alcohol to muslims. The ban was viewed by many as bhutto’s flailing attempts to stay in power, to appease the mullahs and garner their support. On both accounts he failed. The mullahs didn’t give him their support; and Muslims in Pakistan continue to buy and consume...
reading neruda and drinking (bootlegged) wine.
I am going to school myself so well in things that, when I try to explain my problems, I shall speak, not of self, but of geography. we are many - neruda.
loving and leaving (lahore)
if my heart is in the right place, what does it matter where i live?
but my heart is breathing and splintering and pulsating in many different places all at once. on the streets of new york, en el malécon en la habana, in the fall leaves turning colour in the pioneer valley, somewhere in the valley of kashmir where i have yet not traveled, in the walled city of lahore, on a farm called kopkind...
pak-cheen dosti
Pakistani prime minister Gilani hailed China as our “best and most trusted friend,” and affirmed that bond in various different ways. What is garnering the most newsbytes upto now has been the decision to institute the learning of Mandarin as a required language in schools in Sind by 2013. This decision has been critiqued as being too taxing for the students who are “already...
A tribute to Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Taseer...
heat
everyone keeps asking me about the heat. how i’m acclimatizing and readjusting to the heat. i quite literally have to pause for a minute before i can answer that question. in that minute, i try and figure out where the person is coming from where they’re asking me that question. i mean the heat is quite quite blazingly intense, i’ll admit, but before i can even begin to reckon...
August 2011
7 posts
discovering art →
http://aliazmat.org/2009moorat.html (check out his work here)
taimur took me to meet ali azmat, (not the bald ex-junoon singer, given to declaring everything to be a zionist conspiracy) but an artist who showed us his collection and his own work. we chatted and spoke about the inspiration for the moorat series, the work he had done of khwajasirahs in lahore.
this is my fav one. what a dyke...
a (censored) article about balochistan →
http://tribune.com.pk/story/174433/the-terribly-sad-state-of-balochistan/
written by Nosheen Ali
“The military operation in Balochistan has only intensified over the last five years, with many in the province seeing it as nothing but a brutal form of state repression. Reportedly, more than 4,000 people havebeen illegally abducted and detained. Out of these, around 149 were later found...
queer temporalities
The other evening, I attended a discussion at café bol, titled ‘LGBT rights discourse in the Pakistani context.’ The café is tucked in a corridor leading off from a back street, behind a bustling market place. It could be easier to find, but perhaps the secrecy has its advantages. The café has hosted discussions around religion, social practices, laws, marriage and sexuality....
fasting and feasting
Days and nights and sleep/wake patterns, food, all of life and living is ordained by ramzan and the swooping overarching control of ‘in the name of islam.’ All cafés are closed during breakfast and lunch hours, opening only for iftar deals and then dinner. some serve sehri. As I don’t fast, since in the three days that i’ve been back, my appetite has become half of what it...
